[odf-discuss] OOo OOXML filters

[Carlos Moffat]

On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 22:28 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
> Carlos Moffat wrote:
> > I don't quite the logic from "we haven't seen any results until now" to
> > "[conversion] can never reach a sufficient quality". If not results are
> > available, how does he know?
> >   
> 
> Well, for one thing, if your OXML loader consists of OXML -> ODF ->
> load; you're constrained a) by the speed of the conversion (which is
> likely to be not-that-performant for large documents, compared to the
> .doc loader) and b) by being able to map the OXML featureset onto ODF
> (which is already know is problematic, if you read the conversion team's
> blog - there are issues going in both directions).
> 
> OXML is a relative of the binary formats, and the new loader will be
> written from that codebase - it's not a "from scratch" implementation.
> 

I see. That's interesting, as I thought OOXML was a completely different
animal from the previous (binary formats). That is, I thought
feature-wise OOXML was a close cousin, of course, but that their guts
were quite different.

> > The only reason I've been able to come up with is that supporters of ODF
> > would not like this, as it would make too easy for people to use OOXML
> > instead of ODF. However, not having a good OOXML filter (the very best
> > possible) would only make adoption of OO harder.
> >   
> 
> I believe you're right. Personally, I believe that excellent conversion
> to and from OXML only makes ODF stronger: it proves that the format is
> equivalently featured, and if we have better tools for ODF there's a lot
> of value in ODF even if people are only interested in the OXML output.
> 

I thinks it makes both ODF and OO stronger. But there seems to be a
(mistaken, in my opinion) belief that the strategy should be to impede
OOXML features in OO and instead convince people to use ODF. That is, a
variant of the strategy Microsoft has used many times before.

> I have a lot of investment in ODF. However, conversion to and from
> Office using ODF is still a world of pain for any moderately complex
> document: I can show you structurally very simple documents that
> OpenOffice.org cannot save in .doc reliably. I'm willing to put up with
> that pain for the ease of development with ODF; a lot of other
> developers won't.
> 

I believe you! I just don't get the animosity against Novell on this
one. They're basically doing a job that needs to be done anyways.

Cheers,
Carlos